wahm articles

Exposing Your Expertise

by Philippa Gamse

Writing and leveraging articles is my most successful strategy
for promoting my Website and my speaking and consulting services.
Visitors to your site from targeted articles tend to be higher
quality leads than those from search engines, and potential
buyers like to see that you're published in many credible outlets.

Here are my recommendations to implement this strategy:

1.Write the article
This may sound self-evident, but a couple of pointers:

b) Develop a template that can be easily customized for different
target markets. My "Top Seven Ways to Tune Up
your Website" has been parlayed into versions for over
a dozen different industries. The essential points remain the
same, and customizing simply involves adding specific examples.

2. Put it on your Website
One of the key goals of your Website should be to showcase
your expertise. Content (combined with testimonials and success
stories) is the best way to achieve this.

When adding articles to your site:

a) Include a clear reprint policy. This should state whether
you allow articles to be reprinted, and if so, under what terms
(including your byline, copyright, notification of use, etc.)

b) If you have a large number of articles, provide an index
page that divides them into appropriate subject groupings,
and gives a two-line description of each.

c) Create a byline with an enticing hook to get people to
visit your Website. Mine refers to my popular free tipsheet "
Beyond the Search Engines", which lists 23 alternative
ways to promote your site. This is far more powerful than a
bland statement such as "Philippa Gamse is an internationally
recognized . . ."

3. Research and offer it to appropriate venues
It's critical
to be very clear about your target audience, and how to reach
them. Who are the economic buyers and decision makers that
you'd like to be in front of, and what do they read? Do those
sites or publications accept outside articles, and if so, what
are their policies around doing so?

My assistant, Bonnie Jo Davis, runs my highly
successful articles placement strategy. She provides a complete
primer of her methodology,
along with many online research sources at http://www.ArticlesThatSell.com/

4. Follow up links and references
It's extremely important
to measure the success of these efforts, both in terms of
the traffic to your site, and its quality.

Check the "referring URL" section in your traffic
reports, and follow links to you from any site that you don't
recognize. Often, site owners won't inform you when they've
used your material. So you want to ensure that you have been
properly attributed. But also, thank the site owner. I recently
sent a note to a university professor who had added some of
my articles to his course reading list. His response? "I
really like your ideas, and by the way, we're looking for a
speaker
for our upcoming conference . . ."

The Proof of the Pudding . . .

Does all this work? Absolutely. One of my articles was recently
highlighted as the "Cool Site of the Week" in Tekguide.net
- an online technology and computer directory. But the page
that it linked to was not mine, but PowerHomeBiz.com - another
site that had featured this article. So I now have sites quoting
sites that quote me . . . and that gets major brownie points
in Google - the only remaining credible free search engine.

I was also recently hired to consult for a site in the auto
industry after the owner had read my article in eDealershipnews.com.
He said "I liked the article, I can
see how you think, and I'd like some of that thinking for me".
No further selling required!

Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy
consultant and professional speaker. Check out her free tipsheet
for 23
ideas to promote your Website: http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html
Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317.